A Well Told Fable, Shaming, And Suffering Through Art

Daily Ramble 3 of 2019

Today I didn’t get the opportunity to get in much Gaming myself but I did do some reading. I finished off a really cool story that was told by a crow. I applauded Blizzard for their public shaming of toxic players in Korea, and I got through the first issue of CODA which turned put to be pretty good once I was able to get past the art.

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr

By John Crowley, published by Saga Press, 2017.

This was a nice fable that really hooked me in the opening segment. I mean, what’s not to like when you’ve got an immortal crow and the dawn of civilization? It’s this beginning section of the book that I would easily rate 5 stars, it was that good.

Sadly, the story never quite climbs up to that level again even though it still remains pretty good.

What I love about the entire book though is the perspective as it’s told from the point of view of an outsider…a crow. Things are described in interesting ways and I think John Crowley does a good job putting the reader in the mind of a crow.

Coming away from my reading I feel I’ve learned a bit more about crows and more about humanity as Dar Oakley shares his interesting observations on how strange people are. Life, death, religion, and warfare are all covered and while the fable-esque nature of the story makes read king a bit slower, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.

Public Shaming of Toxic Players

I’m not a big player of Overwatch but I saw this article today and it really impressed me that Blizzard was taking such visible steps to curb toxicity in their game.

Public ally list the account names of the perpetrators is a great step in the right direction…along with at least a short term ban.

As long as toxicity is anonymous people are more likely to engage in bad behavior but once a light is shown on those who refuse to play civilly, I think we’ll see some changes in behavior. Who wants to be associated with an account of a player who is toxic? Sure you’ll get some groups that’ll praise these infantile gamers, but when they end up only able to play amongst themselves I think they’ll start to amend their ways.

I hope this is something that expands and we start seeing Riot join in on the public shaming…let’s crowdsource the solution to toxic behavior in games.

CODA #1

By Simon Spurrier and Matias Bergara, published by BOOM! Studios, 2018.

This was an interesting Issue and I’m not really sure I liked it. The story worked well enough but I had some troubles with the art. It was a bit too stylized for me to the point where I started losing perspective and in some scenes had to rally ferret out what was going on. The concept is interesting though, a post-apocalyptic world where magic is only left in the hands of a few where our hero (?) Hum fights to save the soul of his wife.

The comic grew on me as I read so I’m definitely on board to see where this goes, at least for another few issues. Perhaps I’ll get used to the art as well.

Daily Ramble 3 of 2019